David Blight

David William Blight (born 1949 in Flint, Michigan) is an American historian and Sterling Professor at Yale University specializing in the Civil War era, slavery, and African American studies. His most notable works include Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom (2018, Pulitzer Prize for History), Race and Reunion: The Civil War in American Memory (2001, Bancroft Prize and Frederick Douglass Prize), and Yale and Slavery: A History (2024); he has received numerous awards including the Lincoln Prize and American Academy of Arts and Letters Gold Medal in History, and remains active as director of the Gilder Lehrman Center.